‘This day is about all of us’: Henderson teen, one of the youngest to be shot at Route 91 festival, still bears scars

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020 | 2 a.m.

The plan was to stay on the Las Vegas Strip for the night after attending a concert. They got a room at Mandalay Bay.

Nick Campbell wasn’t freaked out, he swears. Then, they checked in and were assigned a room with a nearly identical view to that of the Route 91 Harvest music festival shooter.

“Crazy how it worked out,” said Campbell, who at age 16 was one of the youngest victims of the mass shooting Oct. 1, 2017, on the Strip that killed 58 and injured hundreds more.

Campbell went over to the window of the room, opened the curtains and looked out across Las Vegas Boulevard to the festival grounds. The roughly 300 yards of distance seemed massive.

“It was scary to see how far it was. It was definitely eerie,” said Campbell, now 19 and a college student at San Diego State University.

One of the bullets in the nearly 10-minute shooting spree went through his shoulder, cracked two ribs and collapsed his lung. Bullet fragments are still his in body and eventually will have to be removed.

Three years after the ordeal, Campbell’s lung capacity isn’t great, but it hasn’t prevented him from living a typical teenage life — even enjoying one of his favorite hobbies, live music.

He ran track at Coronado High School, plays basketball multiple times a week in the college recreation center and enjoys hitting the beach in Southern California. The scar from where the bullet entered his shoulder looks like a mole and is barely visible.

Going away to college meant making a new set of friends. And with new friends comes sharing stories from your hometown in getting to know each other. Campbell’s got a story worth sharing.

He hates the attention he received after the shooting — the media tour included an appearance on the “Today Show” — but realizes expressing his feelings can be therapeutic.

He’s had therapy sessions, some weeks more than others, the past three years.

“It’s such an unbelievable story. Most people are in shock,” he said.

Because he was wounded, Campbell is often labeled as a survivor. But he’s quick to point out that physical scars aren’t the lone requirement for this classification. There were about 22,000 people in the line of fire at the festival that night, and many are still struggling, he says.

Campbell has also had his moments.

After attending a Jason Aldean concert in Las Vegas last December, he retreated to the car to “listen to country music and cry it out.” Aldean performed the song he was playing when the shooting began, “When She Says Baby.” He also performed the rendition of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” the same tribute from a “Saturday Night Live” appearance.

“The first year, I was taking it all in and processing what had happened,” Campbell said. “The second year, it started to get harder. Now I understand what happened. I can finalize it. It’s not a dream.”

Campbell’s recovery has included a return trip to the shooting site with family. Initially, they would avoid driving near the site because it was too painful. But being back was an important step in the process.

“We tried to walk the site to bring some closure,” said Jeff Campbell, his father.

The family doesn’t often talk with each other about the shooting, although it’s surely in the back of everyone’s mind — especially when Nick leaves the house. Dropping him at the dorms was especially tough on his mom.

Campbell has met other Route 91 victims other the years and remains in close contact with an Oregon couple who helped get him to University Medical Center after being shot.

They reached out to his parents during the chaos to relay information and are among the many good Samaritans credited with saving his life.

Organizers of a few remembrance events have invited Campbell to their gatherings today. He’ll return from college to be with family and to be an observer from the back of the functions. He understands the attention he received after the shooting because of his age, but stresses there are thousands of others who are equally suffering.

“For me, there are 22,000 people who are survivors. This day is about all of us,” he said. “We are all dealing with the mental drama.”

Campbell aspires to be a lawyer and spent his senior year in high school working as a runner for a law firm. He entered San Diego State with enough credits from Advanced Placement classes and tests to be classified as a sophomore.

In a rhetorical studies class, they are examining mass shooting motives. It’s a topic Campbell, unfortunately, is familiar with. Many wonder what triggered the Strip shooter, as no motive has been established.

“To me, it doesn’t matter why he did it,” Campbell said. “It happened. It’s over with. Some days are better than others.”